Tour Australia

As we continued our trek north our next stop was Carnarvon Gorge. This is a national park north-west of Brisbane and is part of the Central Queensland sandstone Belt.

We arrived later than expected at the Takarakka Bush Resort and were lucky to get a caravan site for 2 nights. We were originally hoping to stay in the National Park campground but on arrival discovered that it was tent only camping. To make the most of our time here we set up and unhitched the caravan immediately and set off for a couple of late afternoon walks. We did two short walks, the first was the Baloon Cave walk. This is an easy 1km return walk up to a small cave with Aboriginal art work. The second walk we did was down to the Rock Pool which is an easy walk and only 600m return. Unfortunately as it is winter it was too cold to swim.

The next day we walked up Carnarvon Gorge. We were hoping to walk all the way to the Big Bend and do all the side tracks on the way out – this is against the recommendation of walking to your furthest point and then making your way back through the points of interest. We also decided to only tackle the Boomlimba Bluff at the end if we had enough time and energy.

The walk in general is fairly easy and flat. The only harder sections are on the side tracks. We started out from the Jeep at 9:30am and our first stop was the Moss Garden. This is an amazing little gorge which is covered in a moss carpet. It has a beautiful water fall and plunge pool. We stayed here and ate morning tea as we loved the location.

Our second stop was the Amphitheatre. You will need to climb a couple of ladders to get into this and make your way up a small gorge which leads to a massive chasm called the Amphitheatre. It has shear rock walls and only one entry/exit. Its size made it hard to photograph.

We then made our way to Ward’s Canyon. It is a really nice walk and had a little bit of water flowing through it. It is a very picturesque location but had many people walking through it so was a little hard to enjoy.

From here it was only a short walk to the Art Gallery which seemed to be the location that many people ended their walks at. We were going to head up here next but a group of around 20 people were just in front, so we skipped it and made the 4km trek up to Cathedral Cave. It is littered with Aboriginal art works and is a nice spot. We had lunch here and enjoyed finding the different aboriginal art on the wall.

Not far from Cathedral Cave is one of the most spectacular canyons you will see. Boowinda Gorge is a must see if you’ve trekked this far out and is worth walking up. It was quite cold and dark in there so we needed our jumpers.

We continued through Carnarvon Gorge, the track is not as clear from here but it would be hard to get lost. We made it to Big Bend and enjoyed a short break before heading back. There was only 1 couple up there camping and we thought it would make a great place to stay.

On the way back however, we past around 15 more people heading out to camp. The campground isn’t big so it would have been a cosy night! We made our way back to the Art Gallery and enjoyed the aboriginal art. It was not as spectacular as we expected but it was good to have a look.

We then made our way back to the Jeep. We returned around 5:30pm feeling tired and our legs were sore. It was a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed the walk and side tracks. We are keen on coming back to explore this area more and perhaps venture over into the Mount Moffat area. We definitely recommend coming here but perhaps staying 3 nights rather than just 2.